New Deal (Disabled People)

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on the results of the pilots for the New Deal for Disabled People and the incorporation of their experience into the national scheme. [140395]

The contribution that the pilots are making to our learning and experience is vital to the progress of the New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP). Interim findings from the NDDP pilots were published in December 1999. These findings, and the lessons currently being derived from work still under way, have fed into the design of the national extension of NDDP. We plan to publish the final evaluation reports in late spring 2001. The extension of NDDP will continue to test out, on a larger scale, what works in helping long-term sick and disabled people into work.

On 13 November 2000, the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley), and I launched a prospectus outlining the key elements for extending the New Deal for Disabled People on a national basis. The prospectus paved the way for an invitation to tender published on 27 November for organisations that are interested in delivering the Job Broker service element of the national extension of NDDP, which will begin in July 2001.